Michael Richards visited The View at the moment and revisited the 2006 racist comedy membership outburst that led to a decades-long withdrawal from the general public eye.
Greeted with a heat “Welcome back, man,” by outdated buddy and View moderator Whoopi Goldberg, Richards, selling his new memoir Entrances and Exits, and the panelists wasted little time earlier than addressing the still-hot matter.
Co-host Sunny Hostin broached the topic: “Let me just start by saying I don’t believe in cancel culture, I believe in consequence culture, and you’ve paid a lot of consequences.” She then requested what he was pondering on the Laugh Factory in Los Angeles in 2006 when he responded to a Black heckler with a repeated use of the n-word.
“Well, I’m on stage with a microphone in my hand,” Richards mentioned, “doing an act, breaking in materials, it’s late at evening, and a person within the viewers made an announcement that I’m not humorous, he doesn’t suppose I’m very humorous.
“First,” he continued, “I must say, look, I’m not a normal man. A lot of eccentricity going on in my kind of comedy. I could never have created a character like Kramer without being slightly touched. So I went into character, and I work in a comedy club environment where the n-word is used a lot and I decided I would let it loose.”
The Seinfeld actor went on to explain his points with rage. “When that rage came about, and the rage is channeled into a character…that got me deeper into hell. I felt I got hit so I hit back. That person went low so I’m going lower. I’m very emotional about it, after 18 years you can feel it…”
When Richards mentioned the n-word was used “a lot” in comedy golf equipment of the period, co-host Joy Behar interjected, “It’s not used anymore. Those days are over.”
“For me,” Richards added, “they certainly are.”
Asked by Behar whether or not he nonetheless feels rage, Richards responded, “Anger is still around, it’s the color of my fur. I went personal, personal then I started seeing it collectively and the rage behind the wars and I’m there in a club making war on my fellow man.”
Richards additionally spoke about his 2008 prostate most cancers analysis and his progress since then. “Well, I’m healthy. But at first I thought that’s it, I’m out of here. Then I looked at my family and certainly my nine-year-old son and said Gee, I’d really like to hang around for a little longer. So when I had the surgery, it worked. So I’m around, and here I am.”